Thousands of passionate Italian fans at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli were on the edge of their seats as they cheered on their Movistar Yamaha MotoGP hero, Valentino Rossi who delivered a strong performance and led for most of the race to ultimately take second place ahead of teammate Jorge Lorenzo has Yamaha filled the final two steps of the podium.
Starting from second on the grid, Rossi entered the first corner side-by-side with Maverick Vi̱ales, but was quick to leave the Spaniard behind when he flicked his bike left into turn 2 as he wanted to prevent his teammate from clearing off at the front. After the first lap there was just 0.202s between them and only a lap later the Doctor leaped past Lorenzo in turn 14, reversing the order. He followed it up with two fastest laps of the race that far, 1'33.672s on lap three, and a 1'33.384s on lap five, increasing his lead to over 0.8s.
The local hero continued to push and was able to extend the margin to 1.2s, but Dani Pedrosa had overtaken Lorenzo and was chasing the Doctor down with eleven laps to go. The pair got involved in a fight for first place three laps later. Making his Yamaha as wide as possible, Rossi defended his lead tooth and nail but with seven laps to go Pedrosa made an aggressive pass at turn 4. Determined to fight to the very end of the race Rossi put in a personal best lap of 1'33.025s, three laps to the end, but he was unable to catch his rival and took the chequered flag in second place, +2.837s from the front.
"I tried the maximum to race against Marquez. When I saw that my rhythm was enough to win I was very happy, but later Pedrosa arrived and he was too fast." Rossi said. "I tried the maximum but there was no way, he had a better pace.
"Anyway, it's second place. It's a shame here in Misano, it's a race I especially tried to win, but today it wasn't possible. Thank you to all the fans that were at the track, it was great."
